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Light-Based Memory Chip Is First To Permanently Store Data
sciencehabit writes: Scientists have developed the first ever memory chip that’s entirely light-based and can store data permanently. Sciencemag reports: "Today's electronic computer chips work at blazing speeds. But an alternate version that stores, manipulates, and moves data with photons of light instead of electrons would make today's chips look like proverbial horses and buggies. Now, one team of researchers reports that it has created the first permanent optical memory on a chip, a critical step in that direction. If a more advanced photonic memory can be integrated with photonic logic and interconnections, the resulting chips have the potential to run at 50 to 100 times the speed of today's computer processors."
But does it work at night or in the dark? Inquiring minds want to know.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
>Scientists have developed the first ever memory chip that’s entirely light-based and can store data permanently.
From the sounds of things it uses the same material as optical read/write drives.
How many bits does their chip store? Three? Five?
How many optical components / lasers are we talking here if this thing is going to seriously challenge nonvolatile storage like flash? The photonics makes it sound uneconomical, but I'm not a doctor.
>Ultimately, Bhaskaran says, if a more advanced photonic memory can be integrated with photonic logic and interconnections, the resulting chips have the potential to run at 50 to 100 times the speed of today’s computer processors.
And how fast will SRAM be when that happens?
Link to the original.
http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphoton.2015.182.html
Optical memory chips, transparent aluminum. Holy shit, Roddenberry had it right!
I've only read about optical chips for 30 years, I'm a patient person. In the meantime, I guess I'll watch Outland again.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
Siri will understand me?
"Entirely light-based". Somehow, I suspect that matter is involved somewhere here too. Building something out of just photons seems a bit unlikely.
What? This is Slashdot! I can be a pedantic nerd if I want! :D
and Memories.
In the next 50 years.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency.
somebody kick these engineers and scientists in the ass, tell them to stop fucking around and make the nano memristor already. that shit was supposed to be here fucking years ago.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Make them solar powered and they can power themselves and run infinitely!
>. How many bits does their chip store? Three? Five?
Eight bits per cell (as opposed to one bit for current ram). So neither three nor five.
> How many optical components / lasers are we talking here
The light-supply replaces the electrical power-supply. So at least the same number of LEDs as current systems have power supplies - one.
(too lazy to rtfa, just in case someone willing to answer for me)
do they mean permanent as in no refresh required?
do they mean permanent as in "offline storage" or just permanent as in needing to be "reminded" every X nanosecs?
Can we please get rid of the popular science. Everyone on Slashdot know the promise... Let's rename it Scotty Slashdot and refocus on practical engineering.... rather that PHD's that might as well be science fiction.
Why would light be better at making faster processors than electricity? Is there a natural advantage that light has over electricity that they're dying to tap into?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Oh look, another technology that we will never see the fruit of on a consumer level unless some kind of WW3 happens to force widespread funding and utilization; because Intel doesn't give a crap about technological advancement due to a lack of competition; because AMD has gone into a mentally comatose state for some reason in the past few years. Thus Intel can safely advance at the speed of a handicapped slug, selling the same dung over and over again with trivial improvement only under different names.
But will it be locked down under so much intellectual property legal baggage, that only the richest corporations are able to license it, and that most people will never see it used en-masse for another decade, perpetuating the status quo?
the resulting [memory] chips have the potential to run at 50 to 100 times the speed of today's computer processors.
Am I the only one who noticed that the author doesn't really understand the difference between storage throughput and processor speed?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
As opposed to photons of darkness? WTF?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
For a memory chip that's only about 2/3 of the specs. What about rewrite?
Could this not be done the same way CRTs scan a grid of pixels, just on a micro scale with higher resolution?
This reminds me of an early computer memory, the Williams tube, that enjoyed a brief period of popularity in some first generation machines. It worked by storing bits as charged spots on the phosphor face plate of an oscilloscope tube. Although access was random and fast (12 microsecond read/write cycle as implemented by the IBM 701), its refresh requirements effectively halved its performance, and it was notoriously unreliable. Positioning the electron beam was by electrostatic deflection, requiring accurate sub-microsecond switching of high voltages. IBM's implementation used precision counter-wound resistors to achieve the required control, the counter-winding preventing the resistors from also behaving like inductors. Unfortunately, the counter-winding also led to occasional electrical arcing inside the resistors, mispositioning the beam and causing the "Navajo Blanket" effect where the resulting data corruption had a visual appearance like its namesake woven blanket. Error-free operation seldom exceeded a handful of hours, and the Williams tube was quickly supplanted by magnetic core memory.
Actually electricity does travel at the speed of light. It is just that the speed of light is slower than in vacuum because of the dielectric.
You can do so the same way you address electronic memory, or come up with better ways. Computers are basically lots and lots of transistors. A dozen different types of optical transistors have been demonstrated.
After essentially duplicating current designs, but replacing electrons with photons, you can then eleminate some bottlenecks which are there due to the properties of electricity which don't apply to photons. That gives you a Oarm - an ARM-type design optimized for optical. Then you start revisiting some of the design assumptions in order to take full advantage of the benefits of optical logic.
>you can then eleminate some bottlenecks which are there due to the properties of electricity which don't apply to photons.
One of those properties is capacitance, which allows MOSFETs (thus CMOS) to work, which enable today's processors to have such extremely low static power consumption.
Using optical logic might be very power hungry for this reason, maybe not even worth the bother. (Which isn't to say I don't want researchers to try.)
There have been so many types of optical transistors which have demonstrated POC, I'm sure some designs will have low consumption. Certainly there will be other problems .
Being a geek, I always associate the term 'permanent' with marketing speak, because as far as I can tell, nothing is going to last beyond the end of time itself.
Or is this some sort of total revolution in physics? Are we going to have to rewrite the 2nd law of thermodynamics?
Or is it just marketing speak?
What?
I presume this technology may be more efficient with energy as well. Anyone got any facts here?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.